The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-10-24

lllS bplIlJ, De ucilitu ulNIlle lOI SlNeLcSS
But says some woman, there is a hor-
rid creature that has SO injured me that
rather than make up with her | would Gle
first" Well, sister, you may take your
choice--for one or the other it will be--yOur
complete pardon of her or Gods eternal
Punishment Of you. But says some man,
that fellow who cheated me out of those
goods, or damaged my business credit, or
started that lie about me in the newspapers,
or by his perfidy broke up my domestic
happiness, forgive him | cannot forgive
him | will not" Well, brother, take your
choice. You will never be at peace with
God till you are at peace with men.
Feeling as you now do, you would
not get so near the harbor of heaven as to
see the lghtship. Better leave that man with
the God who said "Vengence is mine,
will repay" You may say: II will make
him sweat for that yet, | will make him
squirm, mean to pursue him to the death,
but you are damaging yourself more than
you damage him, and you are making
heaven for your own soul an impoSSibility.
Ii he will not be reconciled to you, be re-
conciled to him. In five or six hours it will
be sundown. The dahlias will bloom against
the western sky. Somewhere between this
and that take a shovel and bury the old
quarrel at least six feet deep. Let not tho
sun go down upon your wrath"
But" you say, II have more than | can
bear; 100 much is put upon me and | am
not to blame if | am somewhat revengeful
and unrelentingn Then think of the lit
tie child at the moving of some goods from
store. The father was putting some rolls
OF goods on the child's arm, package after
package, and some one said: That child is
being overloaded and SO much ought not be
put upon her, y when the child responded:
Father knows how much / can carry"
and God, our Father, will not allow too
much imposition on his children. In the
day of eternity it will be found you had not
one annoyance too many, not one exaspera-
tion too many, not one outrage too many.
Your heavenly Father knows how much
you can carry.
Again: We ought not to allow the passage
of the sunset hour before the dismissal of
all our affronts, because we may associate
the sublimest action of the soul with the
sublimeSt spectacle in nature. 1t is most
delightsome thing to have our personal ex-
periences allied with certain objects. There
is tree or river bank where God first
answered your prayer. You will never
pass that place or think of that place with
out thinking of the glorious communion.
There was some gate, or some room, or
some garden walk where you were affi-
anced with the companion who has been
your chief joy in life. You never speak of
that place but with smile. Some of you
have pleasant memories connected with the
evening star, or the moon in its first quar-
ter or with the sunrise, because you saw it
just as you were arriving at harbor after
a tempestuous voyage. Forever and
forever o hearer, associate the sun
set with your magnanimous, out and
out, unlimited remuneration of all hatreds
and forgiveness of all foes. | admit it is
the most difficult of all graces to practice,
and at the start you may make complete
failure, but keep on in the attempt to prac-
tice it. Shakespeare wrote ten plays before
he reached Hamlet, and seventeen plays
before he readhed Merchant of Venice, and
twenty-eight plays before he reached Mac
beth. And gradually you will come from
the easier graceS to the most difficult.
Beside that. it is not a matter of personal
determination SO much as the laying hold
of the almighty arm of God, who will help
us to do anything we ought to do. Remem-
ber that in all personal controversies, the
one least to blame will have to- take the
first step at pacification, if IL is ever effec-
tive. The contest between 4Eschines
and Aristippus resounds through history,
but Aristippus, who was least to blame, went
to Eschines and said: "Shall we not agree
to be friends before we make ourselves the
laughing stock of the whole country ln
And 1Eschines said: "Thou art a far better
man than l. for | began the quarrel, but
thou hast been the first in healing the
breach, and they were always friends after
ward. So let the one of you that is the least
to blame take the first step toward concilia-
tion. The one most in the wrong will never
take it. Oh, it makes one feel splendidly to
be able by Gods help TO practice unlimited
forgiveness. 1t improves ones body and
soul 1t will make you measure three or
four more inches around the chest, and inn
prove your respiration so that you can take
deeper and longer breath. 1t improves
the countenance by scattering the
gloom, and Frightening the fore
head, and loosening the pinched look
about the nostril and lip, and makes you
somewhat like God himself. He is omipo-
tence, and we cannot copy that. He is in
dependent of all the universe, and we can
not copy that. He is creative, and we
cannot copy that. He is omnipresent, and
we cannot copy that. But he forgives with
a broad sweep all faults, and all neglects,
and all insults, and all wrong g-doing, and in
that we may copy Him with mighty success.
Go harness that sublime action of your soul
to an autumnal sunset, the hour when the
gate of heaven opens to let the day pass into
the eternities and some of the glories escape
this way through the brief opening. We
talk about the Italian sunsets, and sunset
amid the Apprentices, and sunset amid the
Cordilleras. But l will tell you how you
may see a grander sunset than any mere
lover of nature ever beheld; that is by
fiinging into it all your hatreds, and ami
lnosities, and let the horses of fire trample
them, and the chariots of fire roll over
them, and the spearmen of fire stab them,
and the beach of fire consume them, and
the pillows of fire overwhelm them. The
sublimest thing God does is the sunset. The
sublimcst thing you can do Is forgiveness.
Along the glowing banks of this coming
eventide let the divine and the human be
concurrent.
Again: We should not let the sun go
down on our wrath because it is of little i'm
portance what the world says of you or does
to you when you have the atfiuent God Of the
sunset as your provlder and defender. Peo-
pie talk as though it were fixed spectacle
of nature and always the same. But no one
ever saw two sunsets alike, and il the world
has existed six thousand years there have
been about two million one hundred and
ninety thousand sunsets, each of them as
distinct from all the other pictures in the
gallery of the sky as TiJian's Last Sup
ner,p Ruben's descent from the Cross"
Raphael's TRANSPORTATION" and Michael
Angeles Last Judgment" are distinct
from each other. IL that God of such in
finite resources that he can put on the wall
of the sky each night more than the
Louvre, and the Luxembourg, and
the Vatican, and the Dresden and
Venetian galleries all in one, is my God and
your God, our provider and protector, what
Is the use of our worrying about any human
antagonism. If we are misinterpreted the
God az the rnany-colOred sunset can mt the